"The
holocaust is an ideological club, used to
hold Germany in a vice like
grip"

"IN
the early nineties these organisations
discovered an opportunity to shake down
European Governments and now they have
run amok. They are pursuing blackmail
and therefore they should be indicted
and tried as criminals before the
courts."

A man sees red

Norman Finkelstein on the
"Holocaust-Industry" and the culture of
remembrance in Germany and America

The American political scientist
Norman Finkelstein is starting a
tour throughout Germany in order to
introduce his controversial new book "The
Holocaust Industry". The thin volume
consists of polemics against Jewish
organisations, who, according to
Finkelstein, blackmail European
governments with faked data for
compensation. On the eve of his "European
Book Tour" Alan Posener (Die Welt)
interviewed Norman Finkeltstein

Prof.
Norman Finkelstein on the
6-million story:

"Not only does the '6
Million' figure become more
untenable but the numbers of
the Holocaust industry are
rapidly approaching those of
Holocaust deniers." ...

"Indeed, the field of
Holocaust studies is replete
with nonsense, if not sheer
fraud." ...

»Rabbi Arthur
Hertzberg cast a plague on
both sides, sneering that
"it's not about justice, it's
a fight for money."«
...

"In recent years, the
Holocaust industry has become
an outright extortion racket."
...

»In what has become a
mantra of the Holocaust
restitution racket, this
constituted "the greatest
robbery in the history of
mankind."« ...

»"If everyone who
claims to be a survivor
actually is one," my mother
used to exclaim, "who did
Hitler kill?"«

Norman
Finkelstein: Apprehensively. It
is a very important step for me
personally. I want to do everything right,
but one cannot dictate coming events. I
must trust my intelligence and rely on my
political instinct.

You
call the holocaust an ideology.

Norman
Finkelstein: To be more
precise, an ideological construction, that
originally served the interests of the
Jewish elite in America and has now
degenerated into a money making
instrument. It has become a extortion
racket.

Are
you criticising German organisations as
well?

Norman
Finkelstein: I have no contacts
to German organisations. I am dealing with
the headquarters of the Holocaust
Industry, which means the USA, with the
World Jewish Congress (WJC) or the Jewish
Claims Conference (JCC). I asked Saul
Kagan from the JCC to sue me, I asked
Edgar Bronfman from WJC to sue me,
but they wouldn't do it. But one can
estimate their strength by the fact that
there is literally no debate in America
about my book. However, according to
Amazon.com it is the number one in
South-America, number four in
Central-America, number one in Austria,
number three in Switzerland and number
five in Jordan on the best-selling lists.
It is presently translated into eleven
languages.

Well,
being successful in countries like Jordan
or Austria doesn't necessarily mean that
your book is good.

Norman
Finkelstein: I am not saying
that the comments made were positive
everywhere. Especially in Germany and -
until recently - in Great Britain the
press was very critical. But in America
there was no willingness to debate my
thesis at all. My book has just been

It
appears a bit strange to attack "the
holocaust industry" in Germany, whilst
large parts of the German industry is even
to date not prepared to contribute to the
compensation fund for forced labours
during the NS-period.

Norman
Finkelstein: I am strongly for
compensation, everything else would be
absurd. I am happy that my father received
until the end of his life a reasonably
generous pension from the German
government. But I am as much opposed to
any agreement with those self-appointed
representatives of the Jews. First of all,
because the figures of survivors,
presented by organisations like the JCC,
are falsified and secondly the JCC does
not pass on the money to the victims, but
puts it in its own pockets. This is double
fraud. In the early nineties these
organisations discovered an opportunity to
shake down European Governments and now
they run amok. They are pursuing blackmail
and therefore they should be indicted and
tried as criminals before the courts.

Again:
The assault on the "holocaust industry"
has a different sound in Germany than
elsewhere.

Norman
Finkelstein: A free and
unrestricted discussion is important. I am
not an expert on internal German
conditions. But the desire for political
correctness has determined the reception
of my book there as well. I sympathise
with the good intentions of the Germans.
But good intentions have bad consequences.
Certain individuals and organisations have
exploited the good will of the Germans for
their own evil purposes. For instance, it
borders on holocaust denial, what Karl
Brozik, Chief of the JCC said about
the number of survivors.

You
also distinguished yourself as a critic of
the American culture of remembrance, which
you consider a part of the ideological
holocaust construction. What is your
position towards the holocaust memorial
planned for Berlin?

Norman
Finkelstein: I have mixed
feelings. Actually I do not favour
architecture of a Stalinistic style. We
don't need monumental buildings as we do
not need extravaganzas in Spielberg films.
The bigger a building the smaller the
meaning. In that respect I agree with the
former Minister of Culture of Germany,
Michael Naumann, who said some
years ago, it would be more appropriate to
preserve the camps rather than building
holocaust memorials. Meanwhile he must
have changed his opinion. In Japan they
remember the dropping of the atomic bomb
on Hiroshima by releasing doves into the
sky and let lanterns float down the river.
I find this very tasteful. However,
Americans have no right to tell the
Germans how they should remember crimes
that were committed by a German
government. Nobody has the right to
dictate to the Germans in this matter. Why
doesn't America remember what it did to
its Indians and to the Blacks? Why do the
Britons not remember what they have done
in India, the French what they have done
in Algeria? The holocaust is an
ideological club, used to hold Germany in
a vice like grip. This routine is just a
cheap opportunity for us to escape our
moral responsibility. And what
compensation concerns, well, we should
start paying the Blacks, the
South-Americans, the Vietnamese ...

Just
a moment. Do you really believe that
Germany allows itself to be dictated how
to cast its remembrance?

Norman
Finkelstein: The Germans react
sensitively on criticism from America. The
most influential papers in America have
reported on the debate regarding the
Berlin holocaust memorial and about the
Jewish museum and therefore have
influenced the debate. But if Germany
really wants to emulate its American idol
it would have to built in the centre of
Berlin a museum for America's Indians,
just as America has built a
Holocaust-Museum in Washington.

Comment
by National Journal:

An implacable struggle is
raging within Jewry between
orthodox groups, devoted to the
holy scriptures of Judaism and
the secular Zionists. These
orthodox strains consider the
state of Israel religiously and
judicially illegal. As a matter
of fact they describe Israel as a
"totally Satanic state". Since
this state has been founded
solely on the 6-million holocaust
story its Jewish enemies
recognised the necessity of
destroying the foundation of this
state. It is also true that
Germany, the main financier of
Israel, the "Satanic state",
would cease to exist in its
present form, if the holocaust
story was exposed to the
masses.

Therefore the enemies of
Israel, having realised this
fact, must destabilise and even
dismantle Germany as well. That
is what Finkelstein's book is
intended to achieve as a first
phase of a vast offensive against
the big lie. Some people
criticise Professor Finkelstein
for not attacking the
holocaust-lie directly but that
he only touches the fringes, the
lies around the story. This is
actually not true as it would not
be possible to wage a factual,
revisionist-style war on the
holocaust industry through the
present media-system.

The war had to be instigated
in this manner because by totally
destroying the credibility of the
holocaust heralds, exposing them
as criminals and describing their
operations as a huge conspiracy,
makes it impossible for the
perpetrators to maintain their
power control. However,
emphasising the fact, that the
"6-million-figure is untenable",
Professor Finkelstein strikes at
the root of the holocaust-lie.
When he calls David Irving "a
good historian", despite Irving's
claim that no gas chambers for
killing Jews existed at
Auschwitz, he demonstrates his
inclination to support this line
of revisionist revelation. Here
Finkelstein signals that the
gas-story will be next on the
agenda destroying the holocaust
industry's homebase, Israel.
Professor Finkelstein could never
have published this book without
the support of influential Jewish
circles.

What Finkelstein writes and
says would normally be punished
with a minimum sentence of five
years in prison in holocaust
Germany and up to twenty years in
Austria. The conclusion is that
besides orthodox Jewish strains
even Zionist groups must have
perceived the inevitable eruption
of the holocaust truth and
therefore are now trying to hand
over their stooges in
anticipation of the imminent rage
of the duped German people.

To bring Zionist Germany to
its knees it is necessary to
aggravate the anti-government
mood in Germany by forcing their
Berlin vassals to intensify
persecution against Germans who
know about the lies and the scam
whilst Finkelstein publicly
denounces the same falsehoods
under Jewish protection. This is
likely to turn Germany into a
boiling pot of resentment and
hate. The result can already be
observed.

For the first time persecutive
Germany censored a Jewish
journalist, Tina Mendelsohn .
German TV-station SWR said on
Monday, February 5, 2001 it
cancelled the broadcasting of a
documentary on Finkelstein's
book, apparently out of fear that
the programme could be seen as
promoting anti-Jewish views.

Officials at
Südwest-Rundfunk, a regional
broadcaster station serving
south-western Germany, said, it
pulled the documentary on author
Norman Finkelstein's theories off
the air at short notice and asked
the London-based producer, Tina
Mendelsohn, to make changes. The
show had been scheduled to be
aired on Monday night (Feb. 5,
2001).

In its original version, the
documentary features Finkelstein,
supporters and opponents of his
views as well as a brief opening
clip of Nazi propaganda chief
Joseph Goebbels. The station said
the show could ''trigger
unintended effects,'' indicating
it was worried that it might be
seen as encouraging extreme-right
views in Germany (thus proving
that the so-called extreme right
are in the right).

SWR co-producer Martina
Zöllner said the station was
asking for changes to the film
and would show it at a later
date, but that details were still
being discussed.

An influential conservative
newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung, likened the decision to
Soviet-era censorship.
Finkelstein is due to promote the
German translation of his book in
Germany this week. The German
persecution machinery would
arrest any German on the spot for
making the slightest comments
which are openly promoted by
Professor Finkelstein. But in the
case of Finkelstein they must
refrain, however difficult it is
for them, from implementing their
own criminal laws, because Jewish
power groups do not allow the
persecution of their man,
Professor Finkelstein.

This double standard will turn
Germany into a boiling pot of
outrage which is necessary to
destroy the holocaust industry
and thus Israel. Zionist-Israel
on the other hand can only escape
from this dilemma by creating an
international war that will
distract the focus of the
collapsing holocaust industry in
Germany and Europe and revenge
itself against its non-Zionist
enemies. Thus, the election of
the "butcher" Ariel Sharon was
guaranteed.

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